Trivia / Don't Worry Darling

• Creator Backlash: Following the film's release, KiKi Layne made an Instagram post criticizing the removal of most of her scenes, saying that ultimately the best thing about the movie for her was that she got to meet Ari'el Stachel, with whom she started a relationship.
• Deleted Scene: The weekend of the film's release, KiKi Layne took to Instagram to announce that most of her scenes were removed.
• Descended Creator: Olivia Wilde, in addition to being the director, also plays Bunny, Alice's best friend.
• Fake American: While Harry Styles and Gemma Chan keep their British accents (and, in Styles' case, his nationality in Victory), the English Florence Pugh speaks with an American accent as Alice.
• Hostility on the Set: A situation where the stories about this began to overshadow the film itself. The cast and crew did not get along during production, though there has been some debate around who actually feuded with whom and for what reasons.
  • According to Olivia Wilde, Shia LaBeouf, who was originally cast in the film before being replaced with Harry Styles, was combative during production, and tensions between the two combined with his substance abuse problems led her to fire him from the film. However, in August 2022, LaBeouf countered this assertion and claimed that not only did he leave the film under his own volition due to a lack of rehearsal time, but that Wilde in fact begged him not to — and produced a video call and text messages from Wilde backing up his claim.
  • Moreover, it has also been asserted that Wilde herself was at the center of a lot of the hostility on set, most notably with Florence Pugh. According to accounts by Page Six and Variety, Pugh was frustrated by Wilde's Romance on the Set with Harry Styles, the actor she cast to replace LaBeouf, which she felt was unprofessional, to the point of getting into a screaming match with her on set over it. Wilde was still engaged to Jason Sudeikis at the time and, according to Elle, Sudeikis and their children had even visited Wilde on set at the beginning of shooting, which made people feel uncomfortable with the subsequent affair.^note According to one rumor that went viral on TikTok also reported by the Elle article, both the cinematographer and Pugh herself had to step in to direct some scenes because Wilde was busy having sex with Styles backstage. It was also rumored that Styles' paycheck for the film was three times larger than Pugh's despite their equal roles, a rumor that, if true, would have badly undermined the film's feminist message. (Wilde dismissed the report as false, calling it "clickbait".) Finally, in the messages that LaBeouf released, Wilde mentioned that his presence on set made Pugh uncomfortable due to his reputation,^note as shortly after leaving the film, LaBeouf's ex-girlfriend FKA twigs sued him for abuse, and he checked into rehab soon after, but asked him to stay anyway in the hopes that they would be able to patch things up, contradicting her previous assertion that she fired him for that reason.^note Not helping matters was that during the exchange between LaBeouf and Wilde shown by LaBeouf, Wilde referred to Pugh as "Miss Flo", which led to mockery online, including apparently by Pugh's own stylist, furthering claims that Wilde and Pugh had a falling out.
  • The hostility continued through the film's press cycle before its premiere. Pugh, who was initially excited to work with Wilde, had little involvement in the film's promotion despite being its star and having a reputation for quickly responding to tabloid rumors she believes are false, fueling speculation that she had a falling out with Wilde and wanted nothing to do with her or the film. In an interview with Harper's Bazaar, she also openly expressed her frustration with the intense focus that Wilde was putting on the film's sex scenes in its promotion, feeling that they were overshadowing what the film was actually about, which seemed to undermine how Wilde herself in the past had complained about how during her acting career she was mostly seen as a sex symbol. Wilde, in an interview with Variety, countered Pugh by arguing that the sex scenes were integral to the story. Then came the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where Styles was seen apparently spitting at Chris Pine. While both of them denied it (and the video was low-quality enough that it couldn't be determined if he really was spitting), this led to rumors that there had been hostility between them, too. Ultimately, Styles and Wilde would end their relationship following the release of the film.
• Money, Dear Boy: While it's uncertain that it was her main motivation to do the film initially, one of the hashtags in KiKi Layne's Instagram post announcing (and criticizing) that most of her scenes were cut was "#GotMyMoney".
• The Other Marty: Shia LaBeouf was originally cast as Jack, and according to the messages between him and Olivia Wilde that LaBeouf released, had actually been on-set when the film started production, before leaving due to Hostility on the Set in 2020. He was replaced with Harry Styles, who had been Wilde's first choice for the part but couldn't take it due to his concert tour (until that was canceled by the COVID-19 Pandemic).
• Romance on the Set:
  • Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles started dating after meeting on the set of the film. This stirred some controversy as Wilde was engaged to Jason Sudeikis until publicly announcing their breakup in November 2020, while Styles joined the film in September 2020 and he and Wilde's relationship became public knowledge in January 2021, leading to speculation this caused Wilde and Sudeikis' breakup. They split up about a month after the film was released.
  • On a much more wholesome note, KiKi Layne and Ari'el Stachel met during filming and eventually started dating, with the former considering it the only good thing that came out of her time on the set.
• Troubled Production: An interesting and rare case of most of the troubles being interpersonal (see Hostility on the Set above for details), rather than technical troubles or studio interference. Filming also had to be shut down for two weeks in November 2020 after a crew member tested positive for COVID. Following the film's premiere, KiKi Layne and Ari'el Stachel spoke out about their parts getting significantly reduced in the final cut.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Dakota Johnson was originally cast as Margaret but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. KiKi Layne was cast in her place.
  • The script originally ended with Alice jumping off a cliff and then showing the Victory project (originally known as the Oasis project) tripling in size.
  • Another version of the script, from before Olivia Wilde came on board as director would elaborate that Alice was seeking a divorce from Jack, and she was put in the simulation for that reason, also confirming that she was listed as a missing person.
  • An earlier draft revealed that Jack wasn't actually Alice's husband, but another employee at the hospital she worked at, who was envious of how much more money she made than him and was obsessed with her, kidnapping and brainwashing her into believing they were a married couple. While this doesn't apply to Alice and Jack in the final version, it is implied that some of the women of Victory aren't truly married to their 'husbands'.
  • In the original script, Jack was named Clifford and Alice was named Evelyn.
  • In the earlier scripts, Jack is a more obviously sinister character even before it's revealed he forced Alice into a simulation; he tends to be dismissive and controlling towards Alice, pressures her about having children and becomes increasingly abusive towards her. Alice is also more openly dissatisfied with her life, finding everyday life in Victory dull and meaningless, and wanting to go back to school.
  • In the earlier scripts the confrontation between Jack and Alice once the latter realizes the truth was a lot more violent and sadistic than the one in the final version. In the first script Alice drugs Jack and rams a broomstick into his anus in revenge, before stabbing him through the eye with a screwdriver after he attempts to use it to lobotomize her; in the revised script Alice drugs Jack, smashes a glass over his head and beats him to death with a golf club. In both these versions Jack is a lot more openly abusive towards Alice, with the finished film instead having her accidentally kill Jack by hitting him in the head with a glass and feel remorse for it.

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